Four Things Smart Marketers Do With Press Coverage

A member of your public relations team just secured a killer placement for your company. Congratulations! This is big news—pun intended! This article has it all—corporate messaging pull-through, a nice quote from your executive, complimentary language about your organization—it’s a win all the way around. You’ve passed it around internally and everyone has replied all with comments like “very cool” and “great hit.”

You’re done, right? That’s the extent of the value that this coverage will bring to your org.

WRONG!

If you think the press coverage is a one-and-done type of deal, think again! There are lots of things that you can do with a press hit to make it go the extra mile for your brand. You can (and should) take all that free publicity and make it work for you. Here’s how:

Socialize It

Post that article to your social followers! Sharing stories like this over company accounts is a nice break from traditional corporate announcements and shows validation for your brand by third-party sources. Even though press coverage isn’t an endorsement, sharing articles where your company is reported on externally adds legitimacy to your narrative. That’s because studies show that earned media is considered the most trustworthy form of marketing.

And of course, if you have an executive quoted in the piece or maybe a partner or customer featured in the article, make sure all of them are tagged to give them some extra love, like greater exposure and even more follows. Here’s an example of a tweet Marketo shared that does this:

Incentivize It

There are lots of tools available now to incentivize employees and brand advocates to share news like this via their social channels. Doing so allows them to spread the word to their social networks for additional reach. The benefits of using platforms like GaggleAMP or Influitive is the element of gamification, which entices employees more than an email that just says “please share.” It’s easy to set up a rewards program (Swag! Giftcards! Money! Oh my!) through these tools, further incentivizing your coworkers for their efforts.

Put Some Paid On It

I said that to the tune of “I got five on it,” by Luniz (if you don’t know that reference, please look it up). Just because you got the hit for free doesn’t mean that you can’t give it an extra “boost.” Putting paid promotion behind the post on any social network or via a content distributor ensures that more eyeballs— especially more of the right eyeballs (thanks to awesome targeting brought to you by AdTech and MarTech)—will reach the article.

Memorialize It

Much is given to a company’s website—pricing pages, product specs, customer testimonials, C-suite bios!—but I urge you to consider the page where I spend most my time: the press room. Your press room should not only include staples like your company’s most recent boilerplate and announcements (maybe even a link to your corporate blog, if you’re feeling fancy), but it should also include recent mentions of your organization in the news. It’s one thing for people to see what you’re saying about yourself when they look at this page. It’s an entirely other thing for them to see the nice things other people are saying about you.

Have you done anything exceptional with your media coverage to make it go the extra mile? Share your experience in the comments below.

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